Iranian Political and Nuclear Realities and U.S. Policy Options

Iranian Political and Nuclear Realities and U.S. Policy Options Senate Foreign Relations Committee March 3, 2009 Karim Sadjadpour Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 1 Mr. Chairman, Senator Lugar, and distinguished members of the committee: Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify today. Given Iran’s sizable influence on issues of critical importance to the United States—namely Iraq, Afghanistan, the Arab-Israeli conflict, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and energy security—the longstanding Washington policy debate about whether or not to “engage” has been rendered obsolete. Continuing to shun Iran will not ameliorate any of the above challenges, and confronting Iran militarily will exacerbate all of them. The option we are left with is talking to Tehran. Advocating dialogue is easy, but the devil is in the details. With whom in Iran should we talk? What should we talk about? How should we go about talking? When should we talk? I hope to address these questions today. That Iran continues to be a primary national security concern is evidence of the failure of our steadfast attempts to alter Tehran’s behavior by isolating it politically and economically. Thirty years after the 1979 revolution, Iran remains the State Department’s “most active” state sponsor of terrorism, fervently opposes Israel’s existence, defiantly moves forward with its nuclear ambitions, and continues to represses its own population. More than any previous U.S. president, George W. Bush redoubled efforts to counter Iranian regional influence and weaken its government. Yet Iran’s international reach is greater today than ever, and Tehran’s hard-liners are firmly in control. In charting a new strategy, the Obama administration must first probe a seemingly simple but fundamental question: Why does Iran behave the way it does? Is Iranian foreign policy rooted in an immutable ideological opposition to the United States, or is it a reaction to punitive U.S. policies? Could a diplomatic U.S. approach beget a more conciliatory Iranian response? The only way to test these hypotheses is direct dialogue. Engagement with the Iranian regime need not, and should not, come at the expense of the Iranian people. According to activists like Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi, the United States can more effectively strengthen Iranian civil society and human rights with policies that allay Tehran’s threat perception and facilitate, rather than impede, the country’s reintegration into the global economy. To be sure, there are no quick fixes or panaceas. The Islamic Republic is not on the verge of collapse, and an abrupt political upheaval could well produce an even worse result. The only groups in Iran that are both organized and armed are the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Bassij militia. Our first steps vis-à-vis Iran are critical, for they will set the tenor for the next four years. While the nuclear dispute dominates the headlines, recent history has shown an approach that focuses primarily on punitive measures is the best guarantor of hostile Iranian policies aimed at counterbalancing the United States. What’s needed is a comprehensive approach that aims to build confidence, moderate Iranian policies, and subtly create more fertile ground for political reform in Tehran, all at the same time. 2 I. Iranian Political and Nuclear Realities Understanding Ayatollah Khamenei American policymakers have often struggled to understand where and how power is wielded in Tehran, and for good reason. After the fall of the Shah in 1979, the father of the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, aimed to set up the nascent Islamic Republic’s power structure in a way that would make it impervious to foreign influence. This meant creating multiple power centers whose competition would provide checks and balances to prevent one branch or individual from becoming too powerful and potentially susceptible to outside influence. The result has been frequent political paralysis, an inability to make big decisions, and a tendency to muddle along with entrenched policies. It is within this context that Khomeini’s successor, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, governs as the most powerful individual in a highly factionalized, autocratic regime. Khamenei may not make national decisions unilaterally, but neither can any major decisions be taken without his consent. He rules the country by consensus rather than decree, with his own survival and that of the theocratic system as his top priorities. Despite the outsize attention paid to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadienjad, Khamenei’s constitutional authority dwarfs that of the president. He controls the main levers of state, namely the judiciary, the military, and the media. His power base has expanded considerably over the last several years as the country’s most important institutions—the elite Revolutionary Guards, Guardian Council, presidency, and parliament—are all currently led by individuals who were either directly appointed by Khamenei or remain unfailingly obsequious to him. A careful reading of three decades worth of Khamenei’s writings and speeches present arguably the most accurate reflection of Iranian domestic and foreign policy aims and actions. They reveal a resolute Leader with a remarkably consistent and coherent— though highly cynical and conspiratorial—world view. Four themes dominate his political discourse—justice, independence, self-sufficiency, and Islamic piety—and he interweaves them seamlessly: Islam embodies justice, independence requires self- sufficiency, and foreign powers are hostile to an independent, Islamic Iran. From Khamenei’s perspective, Iran’s enmity toward the United States and Israel as well as the rationale for its nuclear ambitions can be explained within this framework. Despite his hostile rhetoric, Khamenei’s 20-year track record depicts a risk-averse figure who has courted neither confrontation nor accommodation with the West. His distrust of the United States is profound, believing strongly that U.S. opposition to Iran is not motivated by Tehran’s external behavior—its nuclear ambitions, opposition toward Israel, or support for Hezbollah—but because Iran’s strategic location and energy resources are too valuable to the United States to be controlled by an independent-minded Islamic government. Washington’s ultimate goal, Khamenei believes, is to restore the “patron-client” relationship with Tehran that existed under the Shah. 3 In this context, whether U.S. officials announce that they wish to isolate Iran or have a dialogue with it, Khamenei presumes nefarious intentions. He holds strongly that Tehran must not compromise in the face of U.S. pressure or intimidation, for it would project weakness and encourage even greater pressure: “If the officials of a country get daunted by the bullying of the arrogant powers and, as a result, begin to retreat from their own principles and make concessions to those powers, these concessions will never come to an end! First, they will pressure you into recognizing such and such an illegitimate regime, then they will force you not to call your constitution Islamic! They will never stop obtaining concessions from you through pressure and intimidation, and you will be forced to retreat from your values and principles step by step! Indeed, the end to U.S. pressure and intimidation will only come when Iranian officials announce they are ready to compromise Islam and their popular government of the Islamic Republic, and the United States may bring to power in this country whoever it wants!” Given that Khamenei perceives Washington to be hostile to the Islamic Republic’s very existence, challenging U.S. interests has become an important foreign policy priority for the Iranian government. This has motivated Tehran to seek out curious alliances with faraway countries, such as Venezuela and Belarus, and to offer support to groups with whom it has little in common apart from enmity toward the United States, such as the Sunni fundamentalist Taliban in Afghanistan (against whom Iran nearly went to war a decade ago). Based on his reading of Washington’s Cold War policies, Khamenei’s primary concern with respect to the United States is not a military attack, but rather a political and cultural onslaught intended to create cleavages among the country’s political elites. This onslaught would spread “Western vice” and cultural influence to undermine the roots of Iran’s traditional society, create popular disillusionment with the Islamic system, and foment ethnic and sectarian unrest. Notwithstanding Khamenei’s mistrust of the United States, the role of both ideology and political expediency are important to his anti-American worldview. A conciliatory approach toward the United States and a nonbelligerent approach toward Israel would be parting ways with two of the three ideological symbols of the Islamic Republic (the other being the mandatory hejab for women). For Khamenei, if the Islamic revolution was all about momentous change, the years since have been about maintaining the revolutionary status quo. Nor is Khamenei’s rationale purely ideological; his writings and speeches suggest he agrees with myriad Iran scholars and analysts who argue that if Iran were to open up to the United States, it would spur major cultural, political, and economic reform. Given that Khamenei’s selection as Supreme Leader was based on his fealty to revolutionary ideals and the vision of Ayatollah Khomeini—whose political views crystallized in the 1970s during the time of the Shah—the chances of him being willing, or able, to reinvent himself at age 69 do not appear strong. 4 Nuclear politics A strong consensus exists within the non-proliferation community that Tehran aspires for a nuclear weapons capability. What’s less clear is the precise impetus for Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Does Iran want a nuclear weapons capability to dominate the Middle East and threaten Israel? Or is Iran a misunderstood, vulnerable nation driven by a need to protect itself from unstable neighbors and a hostile U.S.

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